West Desert Cave Temperatures

This study was started to test a hypothesis that the major caves in the West Desert were hydrothermally heated. Cave temperatures are created from the heating from the cave's surrounding rock. The 3-year mean surface temperature should closely represent the mean cave temperature. So far the 3 caves being monitored maintain temperatures substantially higher than the 50.5 degrees F mean surface temperature. In the present climate conditions, the mean surface temperature should be higher than normal. Just leads one to wonder where all the hot air is coming from?

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The data is collected from Nutty Putty Cave, Blowhole Cave, and Candlelight Cave every 2 hours using Watchdog Model 100 Temperature dataloggers. Each datalogger is located about 100 to 200 ft from the cave's entrances.

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Maintained by Jon Jasper - last updated 2/3/2004